A Draft of My Amazon Review of Piso Christ
I’m working on the second edition of The Greatest Bible Study in Historical Accuracy by Steefen.
I am exploring this book for new information.
Chapter 1: The Piso Family
1 out of 5 stars
New Information / Person of History:
Dio Chrysostom – I’m a little intrigued by this man. Some of his discourses are in the Loeb Classical Library.
Arrius Piso was banished from Rome by Emperor Domitian but returned to Rome when Nerva became emperor after Domitian was killed in 96 CE. The gospels had been written by then.
Chapter Two: The Irreverent Element
0 out of 5 stars
Chapter Three: Understanding the Royal Language
2 out of 5 stars
In the book of Revelation, angels of the churches are really priests of the churches.
Other:
Documenting, writing, and editing talent: 1 out of 5 stars
Research talent: 3.5 out of 5 stars
No index.
It is worthwhile to see this youtube video: New Testament Bible Authored by the Calpurnius Piso’s of Rome Part 1/5, youtube subscriber is Douglas Vogt
I did not give this book 1 star based on the average of stars for each chapter because there is something here.
Dio Chrysostom would have been a contemporary of Josephus. Both were historians in the Flavian empire.
Apparently, he was as good a writer if not better.
Dio Chrysostom was part of the ** you do not have permission to see this link **
In my book I quote the book, “Jesus Outside the New Testament” which mentioned Jesus was a sophist. (I’ll post on that later.)
(academia.edu has this title: Jesus the Philosopher and Sophist. Two classical views on Christianity and Jesus: Galen and Lucian of Samosata)
Piso Christ says Dio Chrysostom was involved with the writing of the New Testament.
Compare Chrysostom’s Discourses to the New Testament.
Let us consider the idea of the “conspiracy theory of history”. What is it in our nature that demands that we always “connect the dots” and shrinks away from the idea of contingency and statistical randomness? Is it that we simply can’t face the fact that things just happen for no reason?
Case in point: Our species, Homo Sap, owes its dominance of this planet not to some special revelation or divine creative act but to a particle of matter that impacted the Yucatan some 65 million years ago and caused or at least exacerbated a mass extinction that cleared out an entire eco-system, eliminating a considerable portion of our ancestor’s natural enemies. Our ancestor, a small furry rodent which lived in and around the roots of bushes and trees flourished and thrived eventually resulting in…us.
Yet we are so wedded to the idea of purpose and planning that we will ascribe this process to God. Religion, then, is the ultimate conspiracy theory. It didn’t just happen. Somebody thought it all up.
Maybe there is no purpose to the existence of the universe. (This is not to say there weren’t physical processes involved of which we are as yet unaware.) Maybe it just happened and it is this way because it just happened. Can we live with no ultimate meaning? Can we flourish and thrive if all that is available to us in the end is simply the experience of being alive?
Dio Chrysostom and Josephus, both connected to the Flavian empire share thoughts in common. – Steefen
Dio proceeds to what is the most important part of his address [The 12th or Olympic Discourse: or, “On Man’s First Conception of God”] in which he offers a great wealth of ideas as to what is the field and function of the plastic arts [art forms that involve modeling or molding, such as sculpture and ceramics, or art involving the representation of solid objects with three-dimensional effects] and what are their limitations. He puts his thoughts on this subject into the mouth of Pheidias, who takes the specific case of his own great statue of Zeus and attempts to show that he has used all the resources of the sculptor’s art in producing a worthy statue of the greatest of the gods.
Pheidias in the course of his exposition says among other things that he took his conception of Zeus from Homer and he makes a detailed comparison between the respective capacities of poetry and sculpture to portray and represent to the decided advantage of poetry.
No ancient writer up to Dio’s time whose works are extant has given us such a full treatment of the subject plastic arts vs poetry. Not until we come to Flavius Josephus do we find such a treatment of the subject.
Loeb Classical Library
Dio Chrysostom
Discourses 12-30
p. 3
Translated by J.W. Cohoon
Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA
1939 / ISBN 0-674-99374-8
Steefen said
Dio Chrysostom and Josephus, both connected to the Flavian empire share thoughts in common. – SteefenDio proceeds to what is the most important part of his address [The 12th or Olympic Discourse: or, “On Man’s First Conception of God”] in which he offers a great wealth of ideas as to what is the field and function of the plastic arts [art forms that involve modeling or molding, such as sculpture and ceramics, or art involving the representation of solid objects with three-dimensional effects] and what are their limitations. He puts his thoughts on this subject into the mouth of Pheidias, who takes the specific case of his own great statue of Zeus and attempts to show that he has used all the resources of the sculptor’s art in producing a worthy statue of the greatest of the gods.
Pheidias in the course of his exposition says among other things that he took his conception of Zeus from Homer and he makes a detailed comparison between the respective capacities of poetry and sculpture to portray and represent to the decided advantage of poetry.
No ancient writer up to Dio’s time whose works are extant has given us such a full treatment of the subject plastic arts vs poetry. Not until we come to Flavius Josephus do we find such a treatment of the subject.
Loeb Classical Library
Dio Chrysostom
Discourses 12-30
p. 3
Translated by J.W. Cohoon
Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA
1939 / ISBN 0-674-99374-8
So a two dimensional picture is not worth a thousand words — a sculpture, not worth 1,500 words?
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